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Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

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Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#51

Post by babypuncher »

kilroy123 wrote: post #43
stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

The Oculus is actually pretty decent for the price and as a standalone device. The issue is the OS feels so... like it was built by a big company with a dysfunctional org chart? It's still an unfocused mess. The bigger issue is, VR will ALWAYS be a niche thing. Always on AR glasses are the real future bet, not a niche industry. VR will never be as big as Facebook / Instagram / WhatsApp. It just doesn't make sense to…

> Always on AR glasses are the real future bet

Glassholes are the future?

VR headsets are at least fun. These glasses though, seem really dumb. I doubt they will ever be ubiquitous. I certainly wouldn't be caught dead wearing a surveillance device made by Facebook of all companies.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#52

Post by babypuncher »

jfoster wrote: post #23
stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

Meta essentially made a sequel to Second Life. I've always been blown away by the fact that they didn't more fully pursue VR gaming. I think they could have found a more enthusiastic audience.

VR will probably always be pretty niche for gaming. Even with affordable headsets, there is still a lot of friction to their daily usage that limits their appeal

- VR sickness

- Lack of physical space in people's homes

- Don't really work as a shared experience without multiple headsets

On top of that, this company in particular is Facebook. Nobody likes Facebook.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#53

Post by randycupertino »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

Zuck and Co just completely failed to read the room. Horizons didn't fail because the technology wasn't ready - it failed because nobody actually wanted the product. It didn't solve any problem and added a ton of friction (headsets, eye goggles, no legs, etc). The headsets were uncomfortable and isolating. The vibes were creepy and weird.

The rolled it out like a cheesy corporate team-building mandatory exercise, not something where anyone would want to actually spend any time by choice.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#54

Post by panick21_ »

anonymousab wrote: post #38
jfoster wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta essentially made a sequel to Second Life. I've always been blown away by the fact that they didn't more fully pursue VR gaming. I think they could have found a more enthusiastic audience.

Zuck never seemed to actually articulate how this was any different or newer than a sterile corporate vr version of second life. Then VRChat got big and seemed to be better than Horizon Worlds for... everything. I feel like the main possible benefits that these digital spaces bring, for consumers, are kinda the opposite of things that any Big Corporate Entity would ever want to be involved in.

Zuck just goes 'all in' on every hype and blows billions, because he doesnt want to miss out on anything. What is a few 10s of billions here and there for a company with a money printer.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#55

Post by KaiserPro »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

> And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone.

I used to work at meta, I was in one of the many research teams that were upstream of horizon.

The Failure was pretty much entirely Zuck's fault, in the same way that when a ship smashes into rocks, its the captain's responsibility.

The first big problem is that there was never a clear definition of what "the metaverse" was mean to be. It was a pivot that kinda appear after orion (the AR glasses that were supposed to ship in 2020 Q3) failed to ship.

A small team had made a VR clone of roblox, where you could make your own games in VR. It was low poly and stuttery on the Quest. Another team was working on getting hand interaction into the quest. A third team thought "hmm, we have a avatar system, what if we can type on keyboards? could we have meetings"

The meeting system and the roblox clone carried on, vaguely separately. Then Zuck saw them and decided that they needed 500 more engineers each. Time passed, progress wasn't fast enough, so more engineers were smeared in.

Then the meta rebrand, and then the whole weird everything smashed together branding.

All the while more engineers were being piled in, most of them had no experience in 3d, let alone games.

But, that would have been fine if someone at the top had been steering, making joined up product decisions, Advocating for the users. carmack sorta tried, but a) he wasn't the easiest to work with and B) Boz thought he knew better

TLDR: Zuck can't product for shit. He thought that shipping disjointed features would make a platform. It didn't. He also thought that dumping 11,000 people into an org, most of which have no experience of games, VR, 3d or graphics would lead to a good outcome.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#56

Post by cheeze »

smileybarry wrote: post #50

It's funny that Horizon Worlds will shut down before its actual launch here. Meta Quest headsets are sold here but the Horizon Worlds part of the OS was entirely blocked off. (The mobile app shows it, but I could never get the headset to navigate anywhere , just stuck in the homeworld lobby)

What is "here" in this context?

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#58

Post by jitl »

alex1138 wrote: post #49
ceejayoz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This; I mean, they even renamed the company .

Is it possible all this was a major ploy to get around antitrust? I'm aware FB has been working on VR for a while even beyond the Oculus that they purchased but it's like... "Facebook bought Whatsapp, yes, but; we're Meta "

the rename came at a nadir of "Facebook" brand when there was lots of hate for misinfo, genocide incitement on the platform, etc. I think that's the more important context rather than "lol i bet we'll fool the antitrust guys w/ a quick name change"

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#59

Post by randycupertino »

elcapitan wrote: post #21
stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

I'm kind of sad they're now officially dumping it, it was always so much fun to see completely fake sponsored discussions on the Metaverse and Metaverse ads in podcasts, and book publications about it. There's something satisfying about watching that whole universe of cognitive dissonance and pretense. Like a sandbox demonstration of the fake hype this industry often indulges in.

Remember when they added legs and they were soooo proud of how it now had legs? But then turned out the legs weren't actually available, it was some minions wearing a motion capture suit specifically for the demo?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/10/14/mark-zucke...

> During the most talked-about segment of the show, Zuckerberg proudly announced that legs were coming the metaverse, which sounds bizarre out of context (and kind of in-context), but it’s the solution to many years of Meta VR avatars being nothing but floating torsos. He and another Meta worker showed off their new legs by kicking and jumping, and Zuckerberg talked a little bit about legs and why it’s taken so long to get them.

> “I know you’ve been waiting for this. Everyone has been waiting for this,” said Zuckerberg. “But seriously, legs are hard, which is why other virtual reality systems don’t have them either.”

> But it turns out the legs that were shown off with all that kicking and jumping were fake. That was not actually Mark jumping, the sequence was pre-rendered for the show.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#60

Post by mrguyorama »

geophph wrote: post #11

Genuine question - was it the product or the implementation that led this to not pan out? Maybe both?

"Metaverse" will never happen because we don't fit in the wires and can't eat electricity.

You can never opt out of reality, so that dramatically reduces the value of a metaverse, and people don't ever actually want pretend reality.

If you are willing to relax the parameters to eliminate the full VR immersion and "rich presence" and other superficial nonsense that moron Execs want because they have no imagination and just think making Ready Player One will make them rich, then we've had the "Metaverse" since the 90s. It's the internet.

In terms of a digital space with user generated content, there have been tons. Some even successful. Meta had ample knowledge to draw from in the space, and should have been able to truly stand on the shoulders of giants.

Instead they chose to omit legs from their atrocious avatars and not give anyone any reason to use it over existing services.

Zuck is a moron that can't accept "You are a moron" as an answer.

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